Posts Tagged ‘Colin-Egglesfield’

Melrose Place has only four episodes left to prove itself worthy of renewal for another season so fans need to rise up and be counted! I’m doing my best to put Melrose out into the blogosphere and encourage fans to post pictures on Facebook and watch the fun YouTube tribute videos. Melrose fans may not yet be as numerous as American Idol followers, but we’re certainly creative. As it happens, I’m trying to go viral and spread the Melrose love with my own tribute video on YouTube focusing on those romantic entanglements of our favorite Melrosers. Ella fans should be pleased. Plenty of fashion shots to ogle. LOL. With apologies to Lady Gaga, it’s called Melrose Place’s Bad Romances and can be seen here.

March 9: Melrose Place has FINALLY returned, picking up where things left off before the holidays. As Riley (Jessica Lucas) tosses and turns in her empty bed, Jonah (Michael Rady) luxuriates with a glowing Ella (Katie Cassidy) about the previous night’s activities, which apparently included an encore! When Ella presses for Jonah to fess up to Riley, he gets cold feet. She’s not pleased. Luckily Ella can distract herself planning a welcome back to Los Angeles party being thrown by Amanda for… herself. Empress Woodward has more than one reason to want the party to go off without a hitch. She expects her new beau, software magnate and philanthropist Ben Brinkley (Billy Campbell) to pop the question in front of L.A. society and the Melrose residents, whom Amanda insists attend to Ella’s surprise. Amanda (Heather Locklear) is still looking for the artwork Sydney misplaced and she’s convinced the clue to its whereabouts lies at the complex. Must be some piece of art! Jonah crashes at David’s pad and tells his bud about his night with Ella. Take it to your grave, counsels David (Shaun Sipos), who tracks down the john who slipped Lauren a mickey and pounds him to within an inch of his life. When Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) sees the sleaze ball at the hospital, she aggravates his wounds after he threatens to press charges against David. Lauren and David celebrate with a dreamy love scene showing off their fat-free bods. But is this really the end of the sleaze ball with the nice pecs? Stay tuned.

Auggie (Colin Egglesfield) will be missed.

Violet Gets Her ManElla gives Auggie (Colin Egglesfield) the job of cooking for Amanda’s bash to make up for doubting his innocence in Syd’s murder. Spotting a bottle of booze, she warns him to stay sober. “Don’t test me,” she says. “Half my clients are in rehab.” Violet (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz), who spotted Auggie putting the moves on Riley, thinks they should both leave Los Angeles and start new lives. Upon learning of Riley’s breakup with Jonah, Violet drags her to the party where a guilt-ridden Jonah confesses about bedding Ella. Riley is devastated. Ella, meanwhile, avoids disaster when Ben doesn’t tell Amanda about the choice zingers Miss Simms shared about her with Auggie within his earshot. Ben, who has excellent taste in jewelry and designer shoes, flirts playfully with Ella, which is spotted by Amanda. When Ella reassures her bitchy boss that nothing was going on, Ms. Woodward puts her in her place by cruelly cutting her down to size. Ben’s gift to Amanda, a Bentley, leaves her cold since she was expecting an engagement ring, but she covers. Should she worry about Ben and Ella? As night falls, Jonah, Riley and Ella are alone and crying in their respective corners while Violet and Auggie realize that it’s time to leave Melrose Place. Violet packs up her belongings, including a photo of Sydney, and the Augster leaves a farewell note for Riley. The two hop a motorcycle out of town.

The CW Network has wisely posted a teaser clip on YouTube that focuses on new Melrose Place cast member Nick Zano as Dr. Drew Pragin and, based on what I saw in the footage, it looks like he may just add some zing to Melrose after all. Drew Pragin is ostensibly a replacement for Colin Egglesfield’s Auggie, a cast firing that caused uproar aplenty among dedicated Auggie fans, but his scenes are more lighthearted than the smoldering angst of our soon-to-be-evicted hottie chef. As Ella puts it, Drew is a cocky frat boy who wants to have fun, when he’s not saving lives or fighting with Jonah over Riley, that is. Zano and Jessica Lucas certainly look mighty fine in the Melrose pool together. Just be careful, Dr. Drew. As Melrose fans know very well, those are some dangerous waters! Welcome to the neighborhood.

I was checking out the CW Network’s web site for updates on Melrose and saw that they uploaded lots of new stills, with the majority focusing on Amanda’s new romance with Ben, a bearded hunk played by actor Billy Campbell (Talk about an appropriate name! Maybe Andrew Shue should change his mind about reprising his original Melrose role just to see the fictional Billy Campbell and the real one in the same scene). Billy and Heather look great together. He’s tall, dark and dashing next to her eternal California blondeness. He looks good with Katie Cassidy as Ella, too. Do I smell a love triangle? Catch the March 9 episode and find out. In the meantime, visit the CW web site here to see more great stills from the show!

Amanda and Ben make a chic and sexy couple in black.

It looks like Ben definitely has a thing for sexy blondes.

The departing Violet and Auggie don't look happy. Did they get their eviction notice?

With less than a month to go before Melrose Place returns with the first of the final episodes of its (hopefully) first season, the spotlight will be on hunky actor Nick Zano to see if he can bring in new viewers. He’s featured briefly in The CW Network’s commercials previewing the new episodes and it seems he’s going to play Drew Pragin, a new doctor working with Michael (Thomas Calabro) and Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen). Should David (Shaun Sipos) be concerned? Maybe not. One would assume he’s been brought in to replace the booted Auggie (Colin Egglesfield) and provide the requisite shirtless eye candy, but he’s hardly a marquee name. I still say Melrose needs to do some newsworthy stunt casting to balance out the new talent. He’s been in Final Destination and 7th Heaven, but viewers will probably recognize him most from his recent stint as the young boyfriend of Courtney Cox’s character on ABC’s hit comedy Cougar Town. He was pretty good at playing a goodhearted suitor on that show, so it will be interesting to see if he does some version of this character on Melrose. Judging from the Cougar Town screen capture here, Nick’s sure gonna fit in at the Melrose pool. The complete scene with Courtney can be viewed at YouTube here.

End game: Michael's faceoff with Vanessa (Brooke Burns) led to another watery death in the Melrose pool.

The Drowning Pool

December 8: The tide has turned on Melrose Place now that it’s been revealed that Michael’s wife Vanessa (Brooke Burns) killed Sydney (Laura Leighton). Just as I predicted in my November 24 post, last night’s episode showed how Vanessa showed up at Sydney’s and their heated confrontation erupted into a vicious catfight in which Mrs. Mancini stabbed Syd, who stumbled to the Melrose courtyard in an effort to escape only to be tossed into the pool by Vanessa. The murderous Mrs. Mancini had been playing it cool all this time, letting everyone around her take the heat for her crime. Michael had hidden Syd’s bloody necklace in his car to protect his family (more like his reputation, if you ask me), but when Vanessa visited him in jail all bets were off and the two swapped accusations and threats. Doctor Mike immediately asked David to take little Noah out of the Mancini home so Vanessa couldn’t take him out of the country. Like clockwork, the killer Amazon showed up at Melrose and confronted Violet, who was looking after Noah while David (Shaun Sipos) rescued Lauren from an accidental drug overdose (more on that later). A determined Vanessa made a fatal mistake pulling a gun on Violet to reclaim her kid since Violet (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz) knew that she had killed her mom, who as it turned out had made amends with her long-lost daughter just before her murder. The vengeful women struggled and wound up in the pool (where else?). Vanessa hit her head and bled to death while a crazed Violet held her underwater to deliver a dose of poetic justice. Amanda, of course, arrived just in time to witness the scene and provided the cops a self-defense excuse for Violet, who now owes her a favor big time.

Can David (Shaun Sipos) save Lauren's career?

Ella’s Turn

David got a call from a desperate Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen), who had been slipped a sex-enhancing drug by one of her hunky but creepy regular johns at a hotel. When last seen, Lauren was fighting for her life at the hospital where she works as David stood by her side. I wonder how she’s going to explain the overdose to her bosses? Will David provide her an alibi? More important, will he find out that he may be Noah’s father if what we saw in Vanessa’s flashback about Sydney is true? Luckily for Laura Leighton fans, Syd’s flashback appearances are likely to continue despite the resolution of her murder mystery since she had some dirty business dealings with Amanda (Heather Locklear) involving stolen priceless artwork. Amanda is determined to find a piece worth $19 million and Violet may play a role in helping her track it down now that Syd’s dead. They could always try a séance. Amanda’s protégé Ella (Katie Cassidy), meanwhile, was having a far better day as things changed dramatically between Jonah and Riley. Jonah proposed the lovebirds elope in Vegas and Riley’s subtle lack of enthusiasm got on his nerves. Ella, who’s working overtime to get back in his good graces, set up a pitch meeting for him with a hotshot Hollywood producer who bought the concept. Ella delivered the good news just as Jonah and Riley were having a big blowout over her apparent desire to delay their impending marriage. A fed-up Jonah decided Riley can keep her reticence and rewarded Ella with a long-delayed tumble in the sack. Looks like Jonah’s life is about to get a lot more interesting. Riley meanwhile, rejected a well-muscled Auggie’s last-ditch effort to distract her from her breakup woes, sending the Augster back to the bottle. Violet, who had spotted Auggie’s lip lock with the hapless Riley, burned a painting of the hunky chef she had been laboring over. How will she and the Augster exit Melrose after the holidays? Is this really the end of Riley and Jonah? Will Ella remain faithful to Jonah? Stay tuned, Melrosers!

December 1: Jonah and Riley’s financial problems seem to get a small reprieve when Ella gets him a job at WPK as an IT guy. Help from Ella (Katie Cassidy) comes with strings, as usual, and she convinces him to hack into Amanda’s computer files to find out what Empress Woodward has planned for the miniskirted media manipulator. Ella’s pleased as punch to learn that Amanda (Heather Locklear) is reasonably happy with her performance and relieved when Amanda later tells her she’s impressed by her cyber snooping. Ella, however, lands in the doghouse with Jonah when he reads her kiss-up email congratulating Caleb on swiping Jonah’s directorial credit on the Lady Gaga wannabe’s music video. When Ella tries to spin it in her favor, he quits and fires her from his life. Later that night Jonah (Michael Rady) gets home to find his expensive video camera broken thanks to Riley’s never-ending interference in Violet’s troubles. Turned out Violet’s cute but crazy adopted brother Levi tracked her down all the way from Oregon (via Twitter, no less) and showed himself to be as creepy as Miss Foster when he pressured her into resuming their twisted romance by reminding her about his paying back the money Violet (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz) stole from their adoptive dad. Riley (Jessica Lucas) paid off Violet’s debt to loony Levi (with the money Violet had returned to Riley for bailing her out when she had been jailed). Levi resents Riley’s intrusion and breaks into her pad to get information about his rival for Violet’s affection, Auggie. The meth addict gets violent and trashes the place. When Violet shows up with a bat, Levi splits, leaving Jonah with broken dreams along with his busted video camera.

Seems like old times when Amanda moves into the Melrose complex.

Killer Fish

Amanda drops in on Michael (Thomas Calabro) and wastes no time in interrogating him about a certain memento that Sydney was keeping for her. The great white shark sees right through the blonde barracuda’s sneaky routine and suggests that his thieving son David may know where the loot is given that he was bangin’ Syd, too. David doesn’t take kindly to Amanda’s threats to expose him as a thief when she shows up at the Melrose complex, so her search continues. Michael’s on the hunt, too, for Sydney’s missing bloody necklace after his wife tells him she caught David in their garage. David turns the necklace over to Detective Rodriguez but his stealing it from Michael’s car makes it off limits as evidence, so he teams up with Lauren, whom Michael was trying to use as leverage against his vengeful son, to set the good doctor up. Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) tells Michael she and David are going out and Dr. Mancini takes a page from his son’s playbook, breaking into his apartment at Melrose only to be caught in the act by the cops. David later gathers the Melrosers by the pool for a celebratory toast to the fact that Michael has been arrested for Sydney’s murder. Will Mrs. Mancini (Brooke Burns) bail out her cheating spouse? David’s happy mood is dampened somewhat when Amanda shows up with the bad news that she plans to move into Syd’s penthouse and interfere with the Melrosers lives as only she can.